People are dependent on Internet-connected computers and mobile phones, which in turn are reliant on central infrastructure in the form of the internet (e.g., domain name servers) and cell towers, respectively to operate. If any kind of scenario arises where that central infrastructure is unavailable or suffering degraded performance, the computers and mobile phones are not able to communicate with other computers and mobile phones.
Smartphones integrate a broad range of communication functions with general purpose computational capabilities. Further, smartphones can also route and bridge communications between different communication bands and protocols, and thus can provide Internet connectivity and service to other devices.
Two distinct types of ubiquitous wireless data communication networks have developed: cellular telephone networks having a maximum range of about 20-50 miles line of sight or 3 miles in hilly terrain, and short-range local-area computer networks (wireless local-area networks or WLANs) having a maximum range of about 0.2 miles (˜1000 feet IEEE-802.11n 2.4 GHz) outdoors line of sight. First, the cellular infrastructure for wireless telephony involves long-distance communication between mobile phones and central basestations, where the basestations are typically linked to tall cell towers, connecting to the public switched telephone network and the Internet. The radio band for these long-range wireless networks is typically a regulated, licensed band, and the network is managed to combine both broad bandwidth (˜5-20 MHz) and many simultaneous users. This should be contrasted with a short-range wireless computer network, which may link multiple users to a central router or hub, which router may itself have a wired connection to the Internet. A key example is Wi-Fi, which is managed according to the IEEE-802.11x communications standards, with a data rate theoretically over 1 gigabit per second (802.11ac) and a range that is typically much less than 100 m. Other known standard examples are known by the terms Bluetooth and ZigBee. The radio band for a WLAN is typically an unlicensed band, such as one of the ISM bands (industrial, scientific, and medical), or more recently, a whitespace band formerly occupied by terrestrial analog television (WSLAN). One implication of such an unlicensed band is the unpredictable presence of significant interference due to other classes of users, which tends to limit either the range, or the bandwidth, or both. For such local area networks, a short range (low power and high modulation rates) becomes advantageous for high rates of spatial band reuse and acceptable levels of interference.
Ad hoc networks or mesh networks are also known. These protocols permit peer-to-peer communications between devices over a variety of frequency bands, and a range of capabilities. In a multihop network, communications are passed from one node to another in series between the source and destination. Because of various risks, as the number of hops grows, the reliability of a communication successfully reaching its destination decreases, such that hop counts of more than 10 or 20 in a mobility permissive network are rarely considered feasible. A typical mesh network protocol maintains a routing table at each node, which is then used to control the communication. This routing table may be established proactively or reactively. In proactive routing, the network state information is pushed to the various nodes, often appended to other communications, such that when a communication is to be established, the nodes rely on the then-current routing information to control the communication. This paradigm suffers from the possibility of stale or incorrect routing information or overly burdensome administrative overhead, or both. Reactive routing seeks to determine the network state at the time of, and for the purpose of, a single communication, and therefore may require significant communications possibly far exceeding the amount of data to be communicated in order to establish a link. Because the network state is requested at the time of communication, there is less opportunity to piggyback the administrative information on other communications. There are also various hybrid ad hoc network routing protocols, which seek to compromise between these two strategies, and other paradigms as well. See, e.g., U.S. Patent and Pub. Patent Appl. Nos. U.S. Pat. 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A much older class of wireless communication technologies comprises voice communication on narrowband analog radio channels, such as paired Walkie-Talkies and Citizens Band (CB) Radio. The set of Citizen's Band services defined by Federal Communications Commission regulations includes the Family Radio Service (FRS) and General Mobile Radio Service (GMRS) which operate at 462 and 467 MHz, Multi-Use Radio Service (MURS) which operates at 150 MHz, the original Citizens Band Radio (CB) which operates at 27 MHz and more recently at 49 MHz, Wireless Medical Telemetry Service (WTMS) at 610, 1400 and 1430 MHz, the Low Power Radio Service (LPRS) at 216-217 MHz, and the Medical Implant Communications Service (MICS) at 402 MHz which are in some cases unlicensed, or easy to obtain a license for the Multi-Use Radio Service, or MURS, is a low power, short range, unlicensed personal radio service in the 150 MHz band. MURS is intended for short-range local voice or data communications. Antenna height is limited to 20 feet above structure or 60 feet above ground, whichever is the greater. Narrow bandwidth transmissions (maximum 11.25 kHz channel bandwidth, with +/−2.5 kHz deviation) intended for voice communications are permissible on all five MURS channels. The older +/−5 kHz deviation signals (with a maximum 20 kHz channel bandwidth) are also permitted (but not required) on the two upper channels (in the 154 MHz band). The range at maximum permitted transmit power of 2 watts is 2-8 miles.
It is noted that certain restrictions on use may be different across the different channels; for example, the MURS is not permitted to communicate with the telephone network, while a licensee controlled band, generally does not have such restrictions. Therefore, the premium band may have qualitative differences in permitted use.
Typically, the highly regulated bands will be geographically licensed, and therefore the transceiver device may require a GPS receiver to determine what bands are available for use. An alternate, however, is to provide a radio frequency scan function to listen for characteristic control channel communications and geographic and/or licensing information, before any communications are sent. Typical rules for band use should not prohibit such automated scanning to determine permissible band usage within the region. A transceiver device may therefore conduct a handshake negotiation with a base station in a particular location to authorize its usage, and to the extent applicable, log usage and charge a prepaid or postpaid user account for the usage.
The wireless telephone system was of course initially developed for voice communications, but another form of communication that has become ubiquitous on SmartPhones is the exchange of brief text messages, which are sent in a “push” manner, and routed by telephone number. Another similar technology is “Instant Messaging”, which sends alphanumeric communications typically over the Internet, to a destination defined by an Internet Protocol (IP) address, or routed by identifier (username) through a central server (similar in function to a domain name server [DNS]). These are small data packets that can be transmitted at low data rates, and sent to specific recipients. This is also somewhat similar to electronic mail between computers, though email routing requires, in addition to a DNS, a sendmail server and a receivemail server. As digital data, these messages can also be encrypted before transmitting and decrypted in the receiver SmartPhone or computer.
Most of the efforts in wireless technology in recent years have focused on maintaining highly reliable voice and data communication for a large number of simultaneous users over broadband channels, in a way that is largely invisible to the user of the wireless device. A typical SmartPhone may have access to both a long-distance cellular phone network, and a WLAN such as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, as indicated in the Prior Art shown in FIG. 4. But what happens when neither network is available? This may be the case, for example, if a user is located in a wilderness location far from cell phone towers, or during an emergency when such towers are not fully functional. While satellite phone systems are commercially available, most mobile units are incapable of taking advantage of such systems, which requires expensive and high-power devices.
There are some recent and earlier examples of prior art that address one or more of these issues. For example, see: US2010/0203878, US2008/0200165, WO2012/078565, U.S. Pat. No. 6,415,158, US2012/0023171, US2010/0029216, U.S. Pat. No. 8,503,934, U.S. Pat. No. 8,165,585, U.S. Pat. No. 7,127,250, U.S. Pat. No. 8,112,082, WO2012/116489, U.S. Pat. No. 7,512,094, U.S. Pat. No. 8,126,473, US2009/0286531, U.S. Pat. No. 7,400,903, U.S. Pat. No. 6,647,426, US2009/0109898, and U.S. Pat. No. 8,248,947, each of which is expressly incorporated herein by reference. These citations deal with wireless communications systems with two available bands, which may comprise both licensed and unlicensed bands.
FRS and/or GMRS has been used for various types of data communications, for example, to communicate GPS coordinates between hand-held compatible receivers, such as various Garmin RINO® models. More generally, it is known to transmit digital data over voice channels in radio communications, though these communications are typically conducted between predetermined members of a network, and therefore typically employ in-channel signaling, i.e., a receiver listens on a single channel for both control information and communicated data. For example, the IDAS Digital radio systems (LMR, DroidCONX) employs licensed spectrum to support radio communications between computerized hosts.